The Brilliant Dance
by streco
Summary: So this is strange; our sidestepping has come to be a brilliant dance where nobody leads at all. MS. Mac and Stella's relationships, how they comfort each other through the tough times, and ultimately how it brings them together in the end.


_So this is odd; the painful realization that has all gone wrong  
__and nobody cares at all, and nobody cares at all.  
So you buried all your lover's clothes, and burned the letters lover wrote,  
but it doesn't make it any better; does it make it any better?

* * *

_

Mac couldn't breathe.

The walls were closing in on him, suffocating him. There was fire, there was ash, there was sheetrock and glass and metal and screams and echoes and crying and explosions. And then he was there; in the building with her, falling, falling, trying so hard to protect her, her head, her body, her life, her soul.

When he shot up in bed, the oxygen burst into his lungs like an overflowing levee, rushing to his head and clearing his thoughts. It was okay; the nightmare was over, and he was alive. The fire-storm was gone, replaced by the soft sound of raindrops outside his window and the gentle rush of bubbles from the fish tank.

A shaky hand went to his forehead; a second passed and then he realized it was his own. He felt like his brain was detached from his body.

He swung his feet over the side of the bed, making sure they remembered how to walk before he set them onto the cool floor. His was an apartment that was never warm, no matter how hot the summer months were. Now, in the fall, it was constantly much colder than it was outside.

The hall was always longer on these dark nights—there were few times he could make it by _that _picture, the one of he and her with that stupid cat that had died weeks before she had, without collapsing into a mess. He shut his eyes and padded barefoot, wishing he'd thought to get his slippers.

There was a woman sleeping on his couch, but not the one he yearned for. It wasn't that he was unthankful for Stella—not at all, she was the only reason he was even clinking on all cylinders. It just seemed that, no matter what Stella would be put through, she'd come out alive. Claire hadn't been like that. Claire had been fragile, and that's why he'd kept her close to his heart, protecting her with everything he had.

But everything hadn't been enough, and that was one concept that Mac couldn't understand, as badly as he wanted to.

Her quiet breaths were in earshot when he reached the end of the hall, and he was proud of himself when he noticed he'd made it without melting into a puddle of useless nostalgia.

When he reached the sink, he braced himself against it as he discovered he had no idea why he'd traveled out here. His chest felt like it was constricting, suddenly, and he couldn't breathe, no matter how many times he sucked in the air around him. It was useless, his lungs didn't need the oxygen, they needed Claire.

He turned the water on full blast and shoved his hands under it, splashing the liquid on his face, on his shirt. The heat was everywhere again; his lungs were an inferno, his skin was melting off of him. Hyperventilating. Choking.

Someone was behind him then, shutting the water off and pulling him into their arms, rubbing his back and his neck and squeezing him as tight as they could. Instantly, the dark, flaming cloud over his body lifted, and then he was cold, shivering on the outside and inside.

She pulled him over to the couch and sat him down, never losing contact with him. And as they sat and he weeped over the loss of his wife, a woman he'd loved with all his heart and then some, so did she.

Stella always understood. She understood when Mac threw away everything of Claire's except that old beach ball, with her air, her life, still sitting in it. She understood when he set fire to her clothing and her dresser, and flushed her perfume down the drain. Nobody else did, but Stella always understood. Stella always cared.

The next thought Mac had was one of uncomfortable wetness—he opened his eyes and pushed a heavy down comforter off of his body. His shirt was still damp, but he was lying on the couch.

When he looked up, he saw Stella facing him as she sat on the floor, her head lolling against the coffee table, her hand stretched forward to touch his.

Mac found his smile for the first time in weeks then.

* * *

All of these will be fairly short, but each chapter will be set to a verse from the song _The Brilliant Dance _by Dashboard Confessional because I feel like it applies to this situation x525600. It's basically exploring Stella and Mac's relationships, and then finally theirs together.


End file.
